12/02/2003 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 12/2/2003 Amendment case involving police knock and announce. He will provide details for anyone who expresses interest. Finance Director Copfer: 1) The RITA collections through the November collection, which is the end of October receipts, are l.l% over prior year. An increase of 1% was anticipated because of the opening of Dillard's and the mall expansion. 2) Last year, Council passed a sanitary sewer credit to be issued to people who used less than 1 MCF in a quarter. She was assured that the Cleveland Division of Water was on board to provide this information electronically. The cost for the credits was estimated to be about a hundred thousand dollars. Dennis Long had worked with the Cleveland Division of Water on this issue. The reality has not been quite that easy. The Finance Department requested information several times in order to use an electronic process so that the residents could get a credit on their sewer bill rather than the Finance Department issuing checks. The Excel file that was sent was reviewed. There were accounts coded "dummy" accounrts, deleted accounts, abandoned homes that still had sewer hook-ups. There were duplicate billings. There were homes that were in repossession. They had just dumped all the information onto one Excel spreadsheet. Some of the accounts were not valid. If the information was used as sent, the cost would have been over three hundred thousand dollars. At this point, through work and review of the data, the amount to be paid out is about one hundred and sixty-four thousand dollars, which is higher that what had been projected. Because she did not have confidence in the information, she asked for a report and received a very lengthy report that is knee-high and in no particular order. The data must be tested to insure it is more accurate. Because of all these procedural problems, she could not meet the November date for credits but will have it ready for the next billing cycle. 3) An update on Springvale, the revenue year-to-date is approximately $974,500 for the golf, and it had been projected at $950,000. The ballroom is at $354,410, and $400,000 had been projected. She is awaiting information on December revenues, but it looks like $90,000 will be sufficient to cover the shortfall. The exact information will be available before Council votes on the last transfer ordinance for the year. 4) Council's reports for the month of October were placed in mailboxes this evening. The General Fund revenue is 1.69% below last year. However, when compared to what we estimated as our resources, we have collected $8% of what we expected to. Real estate and personal property taxes do come in chunks at certain times during the year and there is one settlement yet to be made in November. We are ahead of where we should be. Also, the expenses are 4.36% below last year. The department heads are really monitoring their expenses. She is projecting approximately a five hundred to six hundred thousand dollar carry-over from the results through October. Councilman Nashar asked how many residents might be eligible for a sewer fund credit. Finance Director Copfer said she did not have the exact information with her but guessed it would be between four and five hundred customers. Councilman Gareau asked the Finance Director whether there had been any discussion with the Wastewater Treatment Plant and Service Department as to whether or not the city can economically continue with the program if the cost is double or triple what had been anticipated. Finance Director Copfer said she had not discussed this issue with anyone but Council and her ~s~ ~k ~~,.~~ _,